Tepesch's Struggles Continue

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The Texas Rangers were hoping to get much more than they got from young righty Nick Tepesch on Thursday night in the opening game of a four-game set in Houston.

Instead, they didn't really get much at all, as Tepesch failed to make it through five innings before leaving the game with two runners on base -- two runners who ended up scoring on a Jason Castro grand slam and were charged to Tepesch's tally.

Tepesch, who had pitched two two-run, seven-inning games before his previous start, has now suffered through two subpar outings. True, Thursday's night was as bad as his last time out against the Royals when he allowed six runs, but it wasn't a lot better as he left a lot of outs for the bullpen to get.

"He was laboring, and he had trouble from pitch one and in every inning he was in trouble," manager Ron Washington told reporters. "That inning, right there we got to the middle of the order there and just felt like we needed to try and shut that inning down and Mendez just couldn’t get that done."

Tepesch ended up throwing 89 pitches in his 4 1/3 innings just wasn't efficient enough, and he knew it.

"It was long innings, just no clean innings, really," Tepesch said. "A lot of pitches per inning, it's tough to pitch deep into games when you throw so many pitches."

He'll look to bounce back next week against the Royals, but judging off his previous outing, that might not go too well, either.